Moony's Furry Little Problem
by fellytone
Summary: In their second year, James, Sirius, and Peter follow Remus to find out where he goes every month.


**Moony's Furry Little Problem**

By fellytone

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, November 1972

Werewolves did _not_ knit.

James Potter made a minute adjustment to his binoculars and peered through them once more, certain that his eyes must be deceiving him. But it was true. His friend Remus Lupin, whom James strongly suspected was going to morph into a werewolf in just under two hours, was helping the school nurse with her knitting. Her _knitting_. James reckoned that if any of Remus's fellow lycanthropes could see him now, they'd chuck him out of their creatures of the night club.

"What's he doing now?" Peter Pettigrew, another of James's mates, wanted to know.

"Winding Madam Pomfrey's yarn," James reported with disgust.

"Sure he is," Sirius Black, James's best friend, snorted. "Because Remus, Madam Pomfrey, and the giant squid are getting ready to knit a jumper together."

"No, he really IS," James's eyes were still glued to the binoculars. "He's sitting up in bed, and Madam Pomfrey is winding her yarn – Oy!" James shouted in surprise as Sirius snatched the binoculars for himself. "Give those back!"

"You were hogging them," Sirius evaded James's hands and elbows.

"Because they're mine!" James scowled. He, Sirius, and Peter were in the Hogwarts grounds hiding under James's Invisibility Cloak and staking out the hospital wing, breaking approximately twelve school rules in the process. They'd been there since their last class had let out, skipping dinner in favour of the promise of adventure, mayhem, and lycanthropy. But though they'd been watching avidly for signs of Remus's transformation, there'd been nothing so far to indicate that Remus was going to change into anything more dramatic than another pair of pajamas. Or possibly, given this latest development, a jumper knitted for him by Madam Pomfrey.

"You were right," Sirius reported in amazement, watching a sweaty, exhausted Remus functioning as a yarn spool. "He really IS helping with the knitting." He tossed the binoculars back at James. "We have GOT to have a talk with our mate Remus. No self-respecting werewolf would be caught dead winding someone's yarn."

James snorted his wholehearted agreement, then pressed his eyes to the binoculars once more. Ever since he, Sirius, and Peter had begun to suspect that Remus might be a werewolf, they'd been insanely jealous of him. Roaming the Hogwarts grounds and the Forbidden Forest, staying up all night, getting into fights with other werewolves….some people had all the luck.

Or they would if they ever did anything other than lie in a bed looking miserable. James stifled an impatient groan. They'd been nearly positive that Remus was a werewolf. He, Sirius, and Peter had studied up on werewolf symptoms and checked Remus's illnesses against a lunar chart, and it had all fit together. The only evidence they'd actually lacked was visual confirmation and they'd been planning for weeks to get that confirmation during tonight's full moon. But now, after all that time and effort, there wasn't even anything to see.

"Less than two hours til the full moon and nothing's happened," Sirius voiced James's thoughts aloud once again. "Remus hasn't even grown any extra hair or spouted a tail or _anything_. Who knew werewolves were such a snore?"

James and Peter both nodded. This was proving to be a major letdown. But James for one refused to go home. If his mild-mannered mate Remus really _was_ going to morph into a ferocious werewolf, James wanted to be the first in line to watch him do it.

Upstairs in the first floor hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey finished with her yarn and began to knit in earnest. His job done, Remus slumped back against his pillows and shut his eyes, his face nearly the same colour as the pillowcase.

James lowered the binoculars in disgust. Sirius was right: werewolves _were_ a snore. Huddled under an Invisibility Cloak and out illegally as he was, James couldn't swear up the blue streak he wanted to without calling attention to himself and Sirius and Peter. So he vented his frustration in a vicious stomp instead. This whole werewolf bit was shaping up to be even more boring than a History of Magic lecture. _When_ was Remus going to get to the good stuff, for Merlin's sake?

"Oww!" Peter wailed as James' stomp connected with something soft. "That was my foot!"

"Then stay on your side of the cloak!" James snapped back in a whisper.

"Maybe I _would_ if your huge _foot _wasn't taking up so bloody much _room_ –"

"Peter!" Sirius hissed. "We're trying to spy here! Shut it!"

"But James is the one who – " Peter began

"Shhh!" James and Sirius said together. Peter subsided in an indignant huff, and James and Sirius swapped an eye roll over his head, both conveniently forgetting their own loud outbursts only minutes before. Peter could be such a git. There were some days when James didn't know why he and Remus and Sirius had ever let Peter be their mate instead of their stalker, really he didn't.

Peter puffed up with indignation, muttering under his breath about bullying prats and not having to put up with this sort of treatment. James and Sirius both ignored Peter's mutterings initially, but Sirius's annoyance eventually got the best of him and he clapped his hand over Peter's mouth. Blessed silence reigned for only a few seconds before Peter bit Sirius's hand, hard enough to draw blood. Sirius yelped and glowered at Peter, who returned the stare, and that tore it. Sirius and Peter started toward each other.

James sighed and watched his two mates tussle, torn as to whether he should side with Sirius or knock the stuffing out of the pair of them for ruining their stakeout. James lifted the binoculars to his eyes to check on Remus one last time before giving the whole thing up as a bad job and joining Sirius and Peter's fight. But when he peered into the hospital wing, things weren't as he'd left them.

Madam Pomfrey was helping Remus from the bed, taking much of his weight when Remus's legs threatened to give out. Then she began to lead him toward the infirmary door.

James's jaw dropped. After all the waiting and guessing, was something finally going to happen? He put his eyes to the binoculars one more time, just to make sure Remus wasn't going to the loo or something. But no, Remus and Madam Pomfrey had made it to the door and were now easing out into the corridor. It was time.

Quickly James dropped the binoculars and turned to his squabbling mates. "Knock it off!" he hissed as loudly as he dared. "Remus is on the move!"

Sirius and Peter stopped mid-squabble. "Eh?" Sirius asked, still holding Peter in a headlock.

"Remus and Madam Pomfrey just went into the corridor," James reported. "It's time for Phase 2."

"Phase 2" involved shuffling their way (as it is a physical impossibility for three people to walk normally under an Invisibility Cloak) to the castle's front doors and waiting for Madam Pomfrey and Remus to emerge and lead them to Remus's hiding place. Like everything else that night, Phase 2 didn't go precisely according to plan. The three Marauders waited under the Invisibility Cloak for nearly twenty minutes with no sign of Remus, Madam Pomfrey, or a were-creature of any kind.

"Maybe he changes in the castle somewhere," Peter ventured at last.

"You don't really think Dumbledore would let a werewolf run round the castle with the students, do you?" James countered, trying hard not to let Peter know just how stupid his remark had been.

"Besides, all of those books said turning into a werewolf is really painful," Sirius added. "Everyone would notice Remus screaming in the castle. At least _try_ not to be so –" he abruptly stopped speaking as a noise that sounded remarkably like a squeaky door echoed through the relatively quiet twilight.

Sirius, James, and Peter shuffled as quickly as they could in the direction of the noise and peered round the corner of the castle wall. They were just in time to watch two figures, the taller one carrying a walking stick and supporting the shorter, emerge from a door built so cleverly into the castle wall that none of them would ever have noticed it there if they hadn't known to look for it.

James, Sirius, and Peter watched Madam Pomfrey and Remus make their way further into the castle grounds, hardly daring to breathe in case Madam Pomfrey heard it.

"Come on," James breathed as soon as Remus and Madam Pomfrey had gotten a good distance away. He, Sirius, and Peter shuffled as quickly after their friend, hoping that the big moment wouldn't happen without them.

Not that there was a visibly good place for said big moment to happen on this side of the castle. The greenhouses were too close to the school, not to mention too breakable, for a werewolf to go unnoticed. Otherwise it was mostly just open grass, and the Whomping Willow, right up until Hagrid's hut and the Forbidden Forest beyond that.

Maybe Remus changes at Hagrid's, James reasoned to himself. Then Hagrid could take him into the forest, probably with a leash and a muzzle, and Remus could run around in there until the moon faded. But then, Madam Pomfrey was carrying a walking stick; maybe she and Remus had some further destination in mind that would require a long walk. Maybe they were even planning to go somewhere in the Forbidden Forest.

But even as James worked out the most likely scenario in his head, Madam Pomfrey and Remus veered away from Hagrid's hut and the Forbidden Forest and cut across the lawns in the general direction of the Whomping Willow. Sirius and James exchanged a frown at this. The Whomping Willow was certainly dangerous enough to keep most people (ie, everyone but Sirius, James, and Peter) away. But there wasn't anywhere for Remus to hide. Plus the tree would hammer the daylights out of him before he was even done transforming.

"Maybe she's trying to off him," Sirius whispered in James's ear. James started to reply, then settled for a shrug instead. The truth was he had no idea why Madam Pomfrey would take Remus to the Whomping Willow, and Sirius's suggestion made as much sense as anything he could come up with.

As soon as Madam Pomfrey and Remus were in range, the Whomping Willow jumped to the attack, flailing its branches with enough force to wallop a troll unconscious. Both Madam Pomfrey and Remus dropped quickly to their knees in an almost synchronized movement. It was swiftly becoming clear that the Whomping Willow was a part of their monthly routine, even though James still had no clue as to what that routine might actually be.

Still kneeling, Madam Pomfrey stretched out her walking stick until it touched the Whomping Willow's trunk. There were a few tense moments while the tree's branches swung nearer and nearer and Madam Pomfrey prodded round with her stick, but finally she seemed to find what she had been looking for and pulled the stick away. Within seconds the Whomping Willow's branches froze in midair, rendering the tree as harmless as any other in the Hogwarts grounds.

Sirius, James, and Peter gaped in astonishment as Madam Pomfrey dusted her hands, collected Remus, and proceeded with him into a large gap between the Whomping Willow's roots. After one last furtive glance over her shoulder, Madam Pomfrey and her charge disappeared.

It took several seconds for James, Peter, and Sirius to recover from their shock enough to race forward, the Invisibility Cloak hanging forgotten in James's hand, and inspect the tree for themselves. A few seconds too long, as it turned out. They were just barely out of striking range when the Whomping Willow regained control over its limbs and promptly began to make every effort to bash the three approaching second years into oblivion.

"Wonder what's down _there_," Sirius was eyeing the hole beneath the Whomping Willow the way a niffler might eye a disco ball.

"Dunno," James wore a similar expression. "But we're going to find out."

"I thought we knew everything about this place," Peter commented. He too was unable to tear his eyes away from the Whomping Willow. "But I had no idea that secret passage was there."

"Looks like there's more than just that one passage we found last year," James agreed absently.

"We'll work on that next week," Sirius said dismissively. "What we've gotta do now is figure out how we're going to get in there after Madam Pomfrey leaves."

"Right," James snapped out of it. "Everyone back under the cloak. And we better move a bit. Wouldn't do for Madam Pomfrey to find us by knocking into us." Casting last longing looks at the Whomping Willow, Sirius and Peter complied. Then the three began to plan in earnest whispers as they waited for Madam Pomfrey to emerge. Though James, Sirius, and Peter pooled their considerable mischief-making skills together, they couldn't seem to actually come up with a workable plan that didn't require complicated Freezing Charms, a dragon, enchanted axes, or Transfiguring Peter into a weasel.

"I dunno," Peter shrugged. "Maybe we should at least go and _ask_ Hagrid if he's got an enchanted axe…"

"Yeah, I'm sure anyone who works at a school is in the habit of handing out sharp objects to students," James scoffed. "How many times do we have to tell you, Pete? If you want something sharp, you've got to get it yourself. Or learn a whole lot of Severing –"

"Shh!" Sirius interrupted. "She's coming back up!"

This effectively silenced James and Peter, and by the time the school matron's head was actually visible under the Whomping Willow, all was quiet. Peter, Sirius, and James all craned their necks trying to see, but none of them quite caught what it was that Madam Pomfrey did to freeze the tree again.

"Dear, dear," the school matron sighed to herself. She dusted her hands and took a moment to rest (all of the hole-climbing and Willow-dodging had made her a bit out of breath) before trekking back to the castle.

They were literally quivering with eagerness to find a way under the tree, but Sirius, James, and Peter watched Madam Pomfrey until she'd disappeared through Hogwarts's front door before turning again to the situation at hand.

"What're we going to do?" Peter asked as soon as the door shut behind Madam Pomfrey. James and Sirius swapped glances and nodded once at each other before turning to Peter.

"Right," Sirius said. "Get under the tree, Peter."

"Wh-_what_?" Peter sputtered. "No!"

"Get under the tree," James repeated matter of factly. "Someone's got to take one for the team. And you're smaller than we are. You'll fit better."

"I'm not going under there!" Peter started off strongly, but his voice cracked in the middle and he ended in a squeak. "That tree will beat the –"

"Let's put it to a vote," Sirius interrupted. "All those in favour of Peter taking one for the team and going under the tree to disarm it, say 'aye.'"

"Aye!" James said.

"Aye!" Sirius seconded.

"Nay!" Peter yelled. "_Nay_!"

"Two against one, Pete." Sirius smirked.

"And you might want to keep it down," James advised. "You're about to go under that tree, and if a professor or someone caught you at it, they'd be really stroppy."

"Especially after what happened to Davy Gudgeon last year," Sirius chimed in.

Peter paled at the mention of Davy Gudgeon. "No!" he shouted. "I'm not going in there and you can't make me!"

James and Sirius exchanged another glance. "That's where you're wrong, mate," Sirius said. He turned to James. "D'you want shoulders or feet?"

"Feet are fine," James hoisted his end.

"Put me down!" Peter struggled as his two friends hauled him up by his arms and legs.

"Relax, mate," Sirius gave the shoulder he was gripping a reassuring pat. "We'll try and throw you through an opening."

"And if we do this right, you'll hardly get hit at all," James added.

"On three, ok?" Sirius asked. Peter's only reply was a moan.

"One." James and Sirius began to swing Peter back and forth, doing their best to aim for a gap in the branches.

"Two."

"Wait!" Peter shrieked. "Wait!"

"Three!" They launched Peter into the air.

"WAAAAAAAAA!" Peter screeched, limbs flailing. James and Sirius watched Peter plummeted through the Whomping Willow's thrashing branches toward the trunk.

"Watch out for that branch there, mate!" Sirius called, wincing as Peter missed a particularly big one by a hair.

"AHHHHHH – OOOF!" Was the only response as Peter hit the ground.

"Uh-oh," James said, peering under the tree at Peter, who was sprawled face first in the dirt. "He's not moving."

"Neither is the tree," Sirius nudged James.

"Eh?" James looked up to see the Whomping Willow's branches frozen mid-whomp. An earsplitting grin spread across James's face. "He did it! Well done, Peter!"

"Yeah, bravo mate!" Sirius called. He darted toward the tree trunk, James close on his heels. "What'd you do anyway?"

"Uhhh," Peter moaned. He rolled over and reached a hand feebly toward his forehead. "I whacked my head on that knot when I landed."

"That must've been what Madam Pomfrey was poking with her stick," James concluded, studying the knot in question.

"Well done, Peter," Sirius congratulated again. "It's lucky you hit your head, really, or you might've been in here looking for that knot for ages."

"Yeah, I feel really lucky," Peter groused. "Lucky AND blessed with caring friends."

"Oh, stop being such a little girl," Sirius waved Peter's complaints, and possible concussion, off airily. "D'you want to see Remus or not?"

"You lot coming?" James called from the edge of the hole. He glanced once over his shoulder, then jumped in.

"Right behind you." Sirius leapt into the gap as well.

"Wait up!" Peter complained. He struggled to his feet, then promptly tripped over a tree root and fell face first after his mates.

* * *

James, Sirius, and Peter jogged through the tunnel ( as the Whomping Willow's hole turned out to be) at a crouch, following it up an increasingly steep hill for what seemed like forever.

After several minutes in the tunnel, James began to worry. What if they weren't in time to see Remus change and help him? There was no question in his mind that Remus was in here somewhere; they'd all distinctly seen him go in the tunnel's opening, and there wasn't anywhere else to go. But they very well could be running short on time. James picked up his pace, charging up the hill with as much momentum as possible.

After what seemed like an eternity, James could make out a faint light. He slowed to a walk as he approached it, then stood on tiptoe to peer cautiously out….into a sitting room.

But it wasn't like any sitting room James had ever seen; there were chunks missing from the furniture, the cushions had been slashed open, and even the boards covering the windows bore deep claw marks across them.

It looked as though they'd found Remus's hiding place.

"Are you going to move or just stand there gawping?" Sirius demanded crankily from behind James in the tunnel.

"Sorry." James hoisted himself up into the room.

Sirius vaulted out of the tunnel enthusiastically. "Any idea where we are?"

"Hogsmeade maybe," James shrugged. "Let's go find Remus." They started across the room, leaving Peter to crawl out of the tunnel and scurry after them.

Finding Remus didn't prove to be much of a challenge once they were in the house. Sirius charged up the stairs, claiming that Remus would be more likely to be in a bedroom where he could lie down. The first door he threw open revealed Remus, still weak and deathly pale, lying on a dusty bed and looking like he wished himself dead.

"There you are!" Sirius exclaimed. James and Peter crowded into the doorway behind him.

Remus jumped as the door slammed into the wall, then sat up gingerly. "Sirius?" he asked hoarsely. "And James and Peter?"

"Hey, mate!" James squeezed past Sirius and jogged across the room to flop on the bed next to Remus. "Looks like we're in time after all!"

Remus was visibly flustered. "In time for – I'm just sick, I –"

"Oh, save it." Sirius pounced on the bed on Remus's other side. "We know you're a werewolf."

"What?" Remus paled even further. "No, I'm –"

"We checked all the lunar charts and looked up the symptoms," Peter threw himself onto the foot of the bed. "But we wanted to see for ourselves, so –"

"We followed you and Madam Pomfrey," Sirius interrupted.

"With the Invisibility Cloak," James added. "We waited til Madam Pomfrey left –"

"And I stopped the Whomping Willow!" Peter chimed in.

"Then we followed you here," Sirius finished. "Where are we anyway?"

"The Shrieking Shack," Remus whispered. His breathing was heavy now, and his whole face was wet with sweat.

"That explains a lot," Sirius said thoughtfully. He peered down at Remus. "You don't look so good, mate."

"It's probably time!" Peter crowed. "This is so wicked!"

"You've got to go," Remus croaked. His hands gripped the sheets convulsively, knotting them between his fingers. "Now!"

"Don't worry, Remus," James put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We won't tell anyone. We just want to keep you company."

"No, you don't understand!" Remus was panicking now. He bit back a moan of pain. "You've got to get out of here! It's not – I'm not – "

Remus broke off as his body began to spasm.

"It's okay, mate," Peter frowned worriedly. "We just want –"

"You don't understand!" Remus gasped. "I'll bite you!"

"No you won't," Sirius scoffed. "Sure, we all get annoyed with Peter sometimes, but you'd never –"

"No!" Remus said through clenched teeth. The spasms had gotten worse; now they wracking him so badly he could barely speak at all. "You don't understand. I don't – I can't –" he broke off, biting his lip to stifle a scream.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," James said kindly. "Really, mate, we –"

"No!" Remus managed to shout. "You don't understand! It isn't safe for you to be here! When I – change – I don't have any control over what I do! I could bite, you or even kill and eat you! You have to leave now!" Hair began to sprout all over Remus's face and arms, lengthening and thickening before their very eyes.

"Okay, okay, we're going." Peter moved cautiously off the bed and started to back away.

James and Sirius weren't quite convinced. "But we –" James began.

"GO!" Remus growled in a voice that wasn't quite human anymore. "GO NOW!"

Sirius grabbed James's arm and dragged him to the doorway. "We'll see you later, Remus!" James called from the corridor.

"No worries, mate!" Sirius added as he swung the door shut. A scream of agony was Remus's only reply. Now that his friends were out of sight, he couldn't hold back the transformation any longer.

James, Sirius, and Peter raced down the stairs, through the sitting room, and along the tunnel back to the Whomping Willow. Thoughts whirled in James's head as he went.

Clearly, he, Sirius, and Peter had made an epic mistake. They'd been so wrapped up in werewolf symptoms, lunar charts, and hospital wing reconnaissance that they'd left a very important stage out of their research: werewolf behaviour. Of course James had known in theory that werewolves were dangerous, even deadly. But it hadn't ever occurred to him that he and Sirius and Peter wouldn't be perfectly safe with Remus. Of the four of them, Remus was by far the most levelheaded. Until a few minutes ago, James would have said that the chances of Sirius mauling Peter were much higher than the chances of Remus doing so, werewolf or not.

Okay, so werewolves can't control who they do or don't attack, James mused to himself. There still had to be some way that he and Sirius and Peter could be with Remus safely during his transformations. After seeing where Remus hid and what he had to go through every month, James was more determined than ever to find a way to keep him company.

"Oy!" Sirius poked James, snapping him out of his reverie. "Watch where you're going!"

"Huh?" James stared blankly.

"You almost ran right into me," Sirius pointed out.

"Why did you stop then?" James snapped.

"We're at the Whomping Willow, in case you hadn't noticed," Sirius snapped right back.

"Well, send Peter up to stop the tree," James shrugged.

"Okay. Turns out his head's good for something after all," Sirius sniggered.

"I heard that!" Peter, who had just caught up, glared at Sirius. "And there's no way I'm going under there again, so you can just forget it."

"Fine, you great poof," Sirius rolled his eyes, heaved himself out of the tunnel, and begun to fumble round for the knot. The sound of whooshing branches filled the tunnel for a few long seconds, then came to an abrupt halt.

"Got it," Sirius, now sporting a bloody nose, stuck his head back in the tunnel. Peter and James clambered out, and James draped the Invisibility Cloak back over them before they started toward the castle.

"Now what?" Peter wanted to know.

"What time is it?" James asked.

"Nearly ten," Sirius replied.

"Does the library stay open til eleven?" James wondered.

"Who cares?" Sirius countered.

"We do," James replied decisively. "We've got loads of research to do."

* * *

"C'mon, Peter!" Sirius shouted as he and James raced side-by-side down the castle's first floor corridor.

"I'm coming!" Peter panted as he struggled to catch up. "Can't we slow down?"

"No!" shouted James and Sirius in unison.

Even though they'd been in the library til four, both James and Sirius were bursting with energy, eager to see Remus and tell him about their plan. They'd allowed Peter only four hours of sleep before rousting him out of bed, into his clothes, and to the hospital wing, with only the briefest of stops to inhale some breakfast along the way.

Once they'd actually reached the first floor, James and Sirius had seen no reason to contain their excitement and had broken into a run. They picked up the pace even further now until they were sprinting, leaving poor Peter in the dust.

James and Sirius skidded to a halt in front of the hospital wing, taking a second to catch their breath. They knew from experience that if Madam Pomfrey thought they were up to something, she'd have no scruples about chucking them out.

"What'd you do that for?" Peter gasped as he caught up at last. He collapsed against the wall, drawing in deep breaths.

"Do what? We told you we were going to hurry," Sirius defended himself and James. "And will you stop that wheezing? Madam Pomfrey will think you're dying or something."

Peter cast Sirius a filthy look, but he managed to get control of himself.

"Ready?" James shoved open the infirmary door.

To the Marauders' great relief, Madam Pomfrey was nowhere in evidence when they stepped into the infirmary. As usual, Remus lay in a curtained-off bed at the far end of the room. The only other person in the hospital wing was a Gryffindor girl standing next to a bottle of Pepper Up Potion, her ears still steaming after taking a dose.

Sirius and Peter ran through the hospital wing to Remus's enclosed bed, but James paused just long enough to yank the girl's ponytail. Hard.

"Hey!" the girl glared after James.

"All right, Evans?" James grinned at her over his shoulder and jogged after his mates.

Sirius reached the bed first and yanked back the curtain to reveal Remus, who looked pale and haggard and even more miserable than he usually was after a full moon. "Morning!" Sirius said cheerfully, and plopped down on the bed. Peter followed suit.

"Feeling better?" James wanted to know.

"I suppose so," Remus turned to make sure they were alone. Once he'd confirmed that Lily Evans had in fact left, Remus faced his friends again. "About last night," Remus began.

"Yes?" Sirius and James chorused.

"I – I know you must've been really – horrified, and scared," Remus stared down at the sheet he was gripping with both hands. "And I was hoping – I mean, I - I'm asking you not to tell anyone."

"Of course we aren't going to tell anyone," James rolled his eyes.

Remus sighed in relief. "Thanks," he said hoarsely. "That's a huge relief. And I just wanted to tell you that I won't – " he broke off, took in a deep breath, and blurted: "I know you won't want to be friends with anyone like me, and I wanted you to know that I don't blame you and I won't bother you in future."

"Huh?" Peter was confused.

"Why wouldn't we want to be friends with you?" James frowned.

"Because of – what happened last night," Remus hedged. "Because of what you saw me do. I'll understand if you don't want to be friends with me anymore because of it."

Sirius, Peter, and James stared at Remus with matching expressions of disbelief. "Are you Confunded?" James asked at last.

"That was the coolest thing we've ever seen!" Peter squeaked.

"C'mon, you don't think we'd let a little thing like lycanthropy get in the way of a beautiful friendship like ours, do you….Moony?" Sirius asked slyly.

The ghost of a smile crossed Remus's tired face. "You're going to start calling me that, aren't you?"

"Of course," James, Sirius, and Peter said in unison.

"And we've got loads of questions, by the way," James added. "You know, since we'll be coming along some day."

Remus shook his head. "Like I said last night, it's too dangerous. I could –"

"Yeah, yeah, we know. Bite, maim, kill, blah blah blah," Sirius interrupted.

"Then you know you can't come with me," Remus remained firm.

"We know _people_ can't come with you," James said innocently. "That doesn't mean that other things can't."

"We have a plan," Sirius explained.

"A plan for what exactly?" Remus remained skeptical.

James shrugged. "We think we just may have found a way to keep you company while you deal with your…furry little problem."

"What're you on about?" Remus asked suspiciously.

James, Sirius, and Peter exchanged glances. Then Peter pulled the curtains tightly around the bed and Sirius pulled out his wand and performed the Soundproof Spell they'd mastered in the library around 2 AM. Then all three of them turned to face Remus.

"So," James asked casually, "what do you know about Animagi?"

* * *

Author's Note:

Yet another short little one-shot. I was looking through my notes from PI the other day and found the outline for a chapter that I scrapped because I didn't think it tied in well enough to the larger story. And as I was avoiding work this weekend, I decided that writing that missing chapter was as good a reason for procrastination as any. Hope you enjoy!


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